ests upon?
You base old person, I will cleave your skull-piece with this shovels!"

"Ay," said Edie, "and where do ye think my pike-staff would be a' the
time?"

But Dousterswivel, growing more and more furious, heaved up the broken
pickaxe to smite his tormentor dead--which, indeed, he might have done
had not Edie, suddenly pointing with his hand, exclaimed in a stern
voice, "Do ye think that heaven and earth will suffer ye to murder an
auld man that gate--a man that might be your father? _Look behind you,
man!_"

Dousterswivel turned, and beheld, to his utter astonishment, a tall dark
figure standing close behind him. Whether this was the angry Misticot or
not, the newcomer certainly lifted a sturdy staff and laid it across the
rascal's back, bestowing on him half-a-dozen strokes so severe that he
fell to the ground, where he lay some minutes half unconscious with pain
and terror.

When the German came to himself, he was lying close to Misticot's open
grave on the soft earth which had been thrown out. He began to turn his
mind to projects of revenge. It must, he thought, be either Monkbarns or
Sir Arthur who had done this, in order to be revenged upon him. And his
mind finally deciding upon the latter, as most likely to have set Edie
Ochiltree on to deceive him, he determined from that moment to achieve
the ruin of his "dear and honoured patron" of the last five years.

As he left the precincts of the ruined Priory, he continued his vows of
vengeance against Edie and all associated with him. He had, he declared
aloud, been assaulted and murdered, besides being robbed of fifty pounds
as well. He would, on the very next day, put the law in motion "against
all the peoples"--but against Edie Ochiltree first of all.

A QUITE SUPERFLUOUS INTERLUDE

The snow was now deep in the woods about the
library. It lay sleek and drifted upon the paths,
a broad-flaked, mortar-like snow, evidently
produced on the borderland between thawing and
freezing.

"It is fine and buttery," said Hugh John, with a
glance of intention at Sir Toady Lion, which was
equal to any challenge ever sent from Douglas to
Percy--or even that which Mr. Lesley carried for
Hector MacIntyre to Mr. Lovel's Fairport lodgings.

Sir Toady nodded with fierce willingness. He
scented the battle from afar.

"Ten yards then, twenty snowballs made before you
begin, and then go as you please. But no rus